Hot summer days, crickets that call for the night, Roman buildings, statues, churches and of course the best food in the world: We are going to Italy! With my girlfriend we head off down south from the Netherlands end of July ( not the best time for Italy, but we had no other choice).
1. Dolomite’s
The first stop are the Dolomite’s. The best part of the Alps with rock formation ready to touch the sky and showing them selfs all around the scenery. We hiked around the Puez-Geisler Nature Park, to get a close look at those tops. Before the hike, we stopped at this little church in the fields beneath the Puez-Geisler Nature Park.
The cute little church of San giovanni in ranui, Tirol
Unfortunately, clouds where playing with us so we where not treated with the view we where hoping for, but it was beautiful nevertheless:
The hike to Puez-Geisler Nature Park
Hiking Dolomite’s
When even we go out for a hike, we find places to shoot, to rest and to enjoy
Due to MEGA thunderstorms and the worst weather during our stay in Dolomite’s, we had to go down south to find shelter from those storms. We came to find a nice castle with the name Castle Trostburg . This castle, like so many in the green valleys of Dolomite’s, is situated on a rocky cliff that overlooks both sides of the Valley and is close to the city of Bozen. Its occupied by some lovely old folks, that can give you a tour inside the castle. As we were late and just minutes before all hell broke lose, we decided to just look a round and shoots some nice moody pictures before the thunder would strike.
The medieval castle
I love it when a moody picture can be created by weather, light and its scenery
2. Bologna
Ok, lets continue our journey into Bologna. A student city, full of nice historical buildings, like the 2 large towers and some pretty cool cathedrals ( to be found all over Italy). We choose to get the best view over the city and try to catch a sunset so the city would show great lights and colors. This wasn’t the case; the thunderstorms in the far north of Italy, where now finding their way more down south and we took them with us.
But still, we managed to capture the Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca from a distance with my 100-400mm lens:
A view on the sunset with the Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca in the middle
3. Vernazza Cinque Terre
Some days later we skipped town and went for staying on a camping, up in the mountains. We decided to visit the Cinque Terre national Park. Hard to get little fisher towns with a cute look and with come nice restaurants.
4. Firenze
Being not too big of a city fanatic, I must give credits to the Governance of Firenze ( Florence). They did an amazing job for citizens and tourists that want to visit this big city in the Tuscany region. The city is so rich of history, with the world famous Duomo, and Ponte Veccio, being its eye catcher. Don’t skip this place! Especially for people that want to have a perfect view on the old town you can go to piazzale Michelangelo. A bit higher than the city, you can catch a breathtaking sunset during the summer in Firenze. We really enjoyed walking around the Duomo, eating some Gelato and seeing the sun going down on the Ponte Veccio.
the best time to capture the Duomo; during blue hour
After visiting Florence for 2 nights, where we slept in a very cute little place found on booking.com and who’s owner was German ( great host), we moved further down south.
Driving through all the different Provinces of Italy, we have reach our current most southern ‘state’: Campania. Weather has been quite a challenge for us during this trip: leaving The Netherlands, when it was 20 degrees, we arrived in Tirol, when it was a nice sunny day, but soon after, all hell broke loose. On the camping in the mountains, temperatures dropped to 15 degrees and 2 days later, when we left for Firenze, the level rose to 35degrees. The south of Napoli was the worst. Not only did we not like the city ( one of the dirtiest city’s i’ve ever visited in the world - and i’ve been to many), here the sun was burning and got us very tired; 40 degrees where measured.
perfect details of this alfa-romeo in front of the view on the Duomo. Does it say Italy all over the place?
5. Abruzzo
For a couple of nights, we found a great town to rest, do some sightseeing around and find some ‘real’ Italian cuisine and culture. Isola del Liri. From here we discovered Abruzzo. What an amazing country side! From high mountains, to low fields, ice cold mountain rivers, waterfalls, wine estates and many more beautiful old towns, roads and nature.
This area is phenomenal with so much to look at; moon, lake, sunset, village, mountains; this is lake Barrea
Whilst driving to the Lake of Barrea, we found ourself mesmorised by an old town, situated on a slope. Driving there was pretty cool, we turned around to find the right spot for the picture of an undergoing sun. Little did we know that on the whole road, there was no real good point of view towards the town. We walked a bit down, saw a huge dear staring at us with less then 15 meters and after we finally saw the town, we realised its not a good place for pictures. the results :
The town on the slope
Great light that is so much better with the eye than on print
On another lake we found, for Alla’s shoot, I found a beautiful white cat, enjoying the late night summer warmth on a bale of hay.
White cat on a hey bale in Pesca, Frosinone
6. Amalfi
I am all about nature, landscapes and small towns. Now having seen Cinque Terre, what for me was a bit of a disappointment during high-season ( yes I know, my bat), we decided to give the Amalfi Coast a try, also, because Napoli was a disaster for us: The city is disgusting.
Pompei could have been a nice place, if it wasn’t for the 40 degrees outside and the Green Pass obligation ( no we don’t take a vaccin, just because your government says so - sponsored by the Big Pharmaceuticals), so our luck was found in the Amalfi coast.
Looking towards Amalfi. Isn’t it just beautiful?
There is a point on the road to Amalfi, that you can use as a perfect place for shooting your cityscape shots. Its a restaurant of the hotel Luna.
Does it get more nostalgic and breathtaking than this?